True or False?
Currency is subject to printing errors, so over the course of time, a number of coins and banknotes with misprints were bound to have been found in circulation. Often such ‘misstrikes’ make those particular items more valuable than they otherwise would have been.
In the case of Canadian paper currency, an unusual image, a demon, which was not the result of a misprint, occurred with a series of Canadian banknotes. King George VI’s death in 1952, placed his daughter Elizabeth onto the British throne, and thus created the need to display the likeness of the new monarch on monies throughout the British Commonwealth.
In Canada, the banknotes (first issued in 1954) featured portraits of Elizabeth II, and it did not take long for Canadians to notice something unusual, even sinister, about the young queen’s hair on their money. A grinning demon was peering out from behind her ear!
The paper currency with the demon came to be known as the “Devil’s Head”, or “Devil’s Face” series, and many people continued to see the Prince of Darkness in the Queen’s tresses until 1956, when the Bank of Canada ordered bank note companies to modify the existing plates by darkening the highlights in Her Majesty’s hair, so to conceal the demon from view.
Rumor asserted that the “demon” image in the portrait was the result of sabotage by an IRA member, or unhappy francophone, but the odd image’s presence has never been proved to be the result of anything beyond coincidence.
True Or False? Canadian Money Once Had A Demon Hidden In Queen Elizabeth’s Hair
True
